Failed Liberal leadership candidates’ debts could affect their run at Ottawa nominations in 2015 federal election

The financial hangover from last year’s federal Liberal leadership race could affect the nominations of party candidates for the 2015 election in three Ottawa-area ridings.

Unsuccessful leadership candidates Deborah Coyne, Karen McCrimmon and David Bertschi are all seeking Liberal nominations in the city and are all carrying steep debts left over from their run against Justin Trudeau for the party’s top job.

And all three have different understandings of whether the federal party will give them a “green light” to seek nominations if they still have unpaid leadership debts on their books.

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Coyne, a constitutional lawyer, is planning to move back to Ottawa from Toronto and run in Ottawa West-Nepean, the riding currently held by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, who is expected to switch to the new riding of Nepean for the 2015 vote.

At the end of Coyne’s leadership race last year, her campaign owed $61,000, though she says she has whittled that figure down to $54,000 and plans several fundraisers across the country to eliminate the debt entirely.

“I fully intend to have it done by summer,” she said.

Coyne says she understands that the party’s vetting process requires that any outstanding leadership debt be cleared before the nomination meeting as a condition of “green lighting.”

“The general rule is it has got to be done,” she said. Coyne is expecting to compete for the Liberal nomination in the riding with former riding president Anita Vandenbeld, who ran and lost to Baird in 2011. The date of the nomination meeting has yet to be set.

An early green light comes with advantages in the open nomination races. Once approved by the party, the contestant gets 300 forms to sign up new members in the riding and gets access to the riding association’s membership list.

Former Canadian Forces member Karen McCrimmon, who still owes about $30,000 from her leadership bid, says she believes the party will simply require evidence that the nomination contestant is capable of paying off debt before the next election, expected in October 2015.

“I should have most of it gone,” she said. She plans a series of fundraisers in Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

McCrimmon plans to seek the Liberal nomination in Kanata-Carleton, a redrawn riding composed mostly of Carleton-Mississippi Mills, where she ran and lost badly to Conservative Gordon O’Connor in the last election.

Ottawa lawyer David Bertschi concluded his unsuccessful leadership bid with the largest debt, owing $150,000, a figure he says now stands at around $120,000.

It would be “a shame” if the party prevented leadership contenders from contesting nominations because they had incurred debts in the leadership, Bertschi said, and he doesn’t believe it will.

“There is no rule,” he said.

Bertschi is intent on again winning the party nomination in another Conservative-held riding, Ottawa-Orléans, where Royal Galipeau is MP. Galipeau beat Bertschi in the 2011 election. Bertschi notes that he has had the green light twice in the past, as a candidate in the riding and as a leadership contestant.

One of Trudeau’s so-called star candidates, Lt.-Gen. (ret’d) Andrew Leslie, is also expected to seek the party nomination in Orléans, which was once a Liberal seat.

The federal Liberal Party will not say whether an unpaid debt will scuttle a nomination bid.

National Director Jeremy Broadhurst said in an email that the candidate screening process allows for “consideration of outstanding debt from leadership races as a factor that could impact whether or not the individual in question is officially green lit to stand as a contestant in a nomination race.”

But Broadhurst said the Liberal “National Election Readiness Committee of the Party and those involved in the green light process will make further determinations on this matter.”

The party’s vague response may be owing to the possibility that sitting Liberal MPs could find their green lights turn red because of past leadership debts if the requirement were enforced universally.

Montreal MP Marc Garneau, for example, abandoned his leadership race last year owing $99,000 in unpaid debts and loans. He has vowed to pay it off and has been holding fundraisers, including one adjacent to the Liberal convention in Montreal last month.

The issue is further complicated by Trudeau’s commitment to open nominations, even in ridings where the incumbent Liberal MP intends to run again.

Giving MPs such as Garneau a pass on the debt rule could be seen as unfair to others who sought the leadership.

The issue of leadership loans has been an ongoing embarrassment for the party since the 2006 campaign to replace Paul Martin.

Several candidates were unable to pay down the loans used to finance the campaigns because donations were capped at $1,100 per campaign and it proved difficult to raise money for losing bids after the fact.

Elections Canada was eventually forced to abandon efforts to sanction those who couldn’t pay off their debts because of unclear language in the Elections Act that the commissioner of elections said made a prosecution impossible.

The Conservative government’s electoral reform law, currently before Parliament, contains several new provisions to address debt incurred in leadership campaigns.